Dark Fever. CHARLOTTE LAMB

      Bianca normally enjoyed this job; it gave her a chance to indulge her creative streak, finding accessories to go with a garment or a season, making the window look so attractive that women hurrying by simply had to stop to look at it. Today she wanted an air of spring; she had put a line of little yellow fluffy chicks along the front, sprays of pink apple blossom were pinned on the sides and the models would be carrying spring flowers—all artificial, of course, but they were surprisingly reallooking and had cost far more than real flowers would have done. You could use them again and again, however, which made them cost-efficient.

      When Judy came back with the mid-morning coffee, the window was almost finished, and she went outside briefly to assess it, coming back with a smile. ‘It looks great! I love the chicks—pity we haven’t got a mother hen to go with them. You’ve got a real flair for window-dressing—didn’t you say you once went to art school?’

      ‘I started at college, taking an arts course, but then I met Rob and by the end of my second year—’ Bianca broke off, a little pink, laughed, and finished, ‘Well, I was pregnant, so I left without finishing the course.’

      Judy laughed too. ‘The old, old story. But couldn’t you have gone on with your studies? Why did you have to leave college? Were your parents difficult?’

      ‘They weren’t too pleased at first, but they were very good about it. That wasn’t why I left college. I can’t blame anyone else for that. It was my decision. I simply wasn’t interested any more. I had this strong urge pushing me along—I wanted my baby, I wanted to be a wife and mother; I didn’t want college. Later on I wished I hadn’t been so stupid and I could have kicked myself for not finishing my course, but at the time all I knew was that I was obsessed with going along a different road.’

      ‘Did Rob feel the same?’

      ‘He was very keen to get married, too. He was much older than me and he wanted to start a family, have a home. So we got married in a hurry, my parents gave us some furniture, his parents gave us the deposit on a flat. Rob had a good job, of course, so we could manage without me going out to work. I stayed at home and looked after Vicky. I didn’t want to leave her with some stranger. I wanted to look after her myself.’

      Bianca’s dark blue eyes were smilingly wistful as she sat down to drink her coffee. ‘I sometimes think those were the best years, those first years, we were so happy!’

      ‘You still miss him, don’t you?’

      ‘Every day.’

      Judy gave her a look in which affection and concern mixed with faint impatience. ‘It has been three years, Bianca! You should be over it by now. I mean. I know you loved him and the two of you were very happy together, but you can’t go on grieving forever; it isn’t right. Life has to go on, and, after all, you’re still young.’

      ‘Forty isn’t young!’

      ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, forty isn’t old either—you’re in your prime! No wonder you’re fed up. I bet you haven’t had sex since he died.’

      Suddenly scarlet as she remembered the vivid dream she had had a few hours ago, Bianca almost spilled her coffee.

      ‘Honestly, the things you say!’ she spluttered.

      ‘It isn’t just men who need sex, you know,’ snorted Judy. ‘Women have the same urges. We’re just not encouraged to face up to it. Have you even been out on a date yet?’

      ‘Mind your own business.’

      ‘Has anybody asked you out?’

      ‘Judy, stop it! What’s got into you?’

      ‘You give off stop signs,’ Judy told her bluntly. ‘Any man who looks at you gets that old “don’t even think about it” signal, so they back off fast. Men need encouragement. They need to be sure they won’t get their faces slapped if they so much as ask you out.’

      ‘I’m not looking for another man!’ Bianca told her fiercely. ‘I’m too old to start again with someone else. Anyway, I’ve got the children to think about.’

      ‘They aren’t going to be around all the rest of your life, Bianca. They’ll grow up and move out, get flats, get married—it’s only natural; they’ll soon be adults who need their own lives.’

      ‘Not for years yet. Tom is only fifteen!’

      ‘And when he’s twenty you’ll still only be forty-five. I bet Vicky gets married young. She’s so pretty, she’s going to be swamped with men. When they’re both gone, what will you do? You could live to be eighty—all on your own!’

      A shiver ran down Bianca’s back.

      Judy saw the change in her face and said coaxingly, ‘Do something about yourself—change your hairstyle, stop wearing those boring pale pink lipsticks, get some sexy clothes.’ She leaned over to sniff. ‘I like that scent, by the way—that’s more like it—something musky and mysterious, not that wishy-washy lavender or rosewater you’ve been using for years! You could have men dropping from the trees if you took some trouble.’

      Bianca thought of that as she walked down the busy street to lunch at a small bistro later, leaving Judy to take care of the shop. As she passed under a barebranched poplar tree amusement lit her blue eyes at the idea of men floating down from it to land at her feet, like a Magritte painting.

      By one of those strange coincidences life threw at you, a second later she looked into a travel agent’s window and there was the same image again.

      The window was dominated by a large poster advertising holidays in Spain; out of a bright blue sky floated men in bowler hats and dark suits, carrying umbrellas, coming down to land on a golden beach, a blue sea foaming up on the sand, with girls in revealing swimsuits sunbathing under striped umbrellas, and in the background were white hotels, black bulls, glasses of red white, a pair of flamenco dancers, the man all in black, with a tricorn hat, the girl in a bright red flared dress, her black high heels tapping out the rhythm of the dance.

      It was so colourful and vivid, full of sunshine. Shivering in the cruel wind, Bianca pulled her warm coat closer and longed for the sun.

      Maybe Judy was right. Perhaps it was time she did something about herself. Oh, she wasn’t looking for a man—but she must do something about the way she felt, shake herself out of this grey depression.

      Was that what her dream had meant? She went red again and hurried into the travel agent’s.

      That evening she didn’t get home until half-past six; she was tired and cold. As she parked her car she remembered that she had agreed to go out to dinner at the Chinese restaurant a couple of streets away, and was grateful that she wouldn’t have to cook dinner tonight as she did most other nights.

      She stepped out of her wet boots and left them to drain in the porch. She was so sick of this endless winter. She had to get some sunshine soon or she would go crazy. She hung up her dark pink woollen coat before putting her head round the door of the lounge.

      Her two children were watching a video and didn’t even look up. Bianca considered them wryly for a second. There was no family resemblance between them; a stranger would never guess they were brother and sister. Fifteen-year-old Tom, sprawled on a sofa, as relaxed as if he were boneless, his long, slim body limp, had changed out of his school uniform and was now wearing the inevitable jeans and a blue sweater, his hair the same colour as her own, his eyes the same widely spaced dark blue, and Vicky was sitting in an armchair carefully painting her nails a strange dark plum. She was far more like her father than her mother, with corn-coloured hair and hazel eyes, except that she had a petite, pocket Venus figure instead of Rob’s height.

      ‘Hello, Mum, have you had a good day? Isn’t it cold outside? You must be frozen; come and sit down by the fire and I’ll make you a lovely cup of coffee,’ Bianca said loudly.

      Her son, Tom, did look round then, grinning as he tossed his untidy hair out of his eyes. ‘The little men in